“It’s the waiting,” Davy replied. “Waiting to know when and where they’ll strike. All the waiting is dull enough to make mush of a ma
n’s brains.”
“I think they’ll come the way you did,” the other warrior said, resting a muscular arm on the table. “From the loch. Up the walls. At night, when there’s no moon. They’ll dress like villagers, so it won’t be easy to tell them apart. For all we know they’re already inside, waiting for a moment to betray us.”
Instead of grinning at the prospect of battle—as he normally did—Davy actually grimaced. “What an optimist you are, Ian Macrae.”
And Arabella stiffened in her chair.
Ian Macrae. The laird’s kinsman. A man many in the clan thought ought to have been the laird. And she narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious of a man who could lay out so precisely a plan for treachery.
If there really was a traitor inside the castle, was it more likely to be a man dressed like a villager? Would rival clans count on that? Or was it more likely to be the laird’s own kinsman—a man who stood to gain from the laird’s death?
“Aren’t you hungry, lass?” Davy asked, when she pushed back from the table.
“I’ve lost my appetite,” she replied, trying very hard not to meet the eyes of Ian Macrae. “And I think I should retire.”
Davy caught her sleeve, eyes hopeful. “But there’s to be music. Maybe dancing. It’s important for people to keep their spirits up in a castle under siege.”
She understood that. And she wondered if the laird would lead the dancing, and if he would have her sister on his arm. She hoped so. She did. But she felt the curious stares of the laird’s men—some of them lascivious. And though she was resigned to her status as a fallen women, she didn’t want them to get the idea that she was available to them for a price.
“I’d like some air,” she said, waving away the smoke from a candle, as if that was what bothered her.
And Davy rose to walk beside her. “I’ll go with you.”
In truth, she loved having Davy beside her. His strength, his bravery, his confidence all made her feel stronger. But given her feelings for Malcolm, she was decidedly confused.
“You needn’t walk with me,” she said when they escaped the hall.
“There isn’t anyone else I’d rather walk with, lass. Besides…I have something for you.”
Arabella turned to him, curiously, as he offered her…a turnip.
“After the snowstorm, there aren’t any flowers to be had,” he explained. “But I asked the kitchen girl to cut one for you out of a turnip. She agreed only if we promised to eat it. Anyway, I was going to offer it to you when the music started and ask you to dance, but in truth, I’d rather have you to myself.”
“Would you now?” she asked, utterly charmed.
Davy swallowed, wiping one sweaty palm upon his plaid, and she realized that he was nervous. Very nervous. She’d never seen him this way before. And a flush began to crawl its way up his pale neck to his freckled ears. “Arabella, I have a very important question to ask you.”
Dear God, was he going to propose marriage? And what would she say if he did? Her whole body tightened like a bowstring as her mind reeled in confusion. She’d made peace with the fact that she was too ruined to be any man’s wife. She’d cast off Conall and made love to Malcolm and…
Davy cleared his throat. “Arabella, I canna stop thinking about kissing you. About touching you. I sit next to you at a table and feel my cock swell to the bursting point. You’d think I’d have had my fill of you at the cottage, and I tried. But now I’m in a fever of need. And it is more distracting than you could ever imagine. Even at this moment, my mind is a haze as I imagine lifting you up and pressing your back to this wall, and taking you here and now. I was hoping you would agree to let me.”
It was not, of course, what she thought to hear him say.
And even less did she anticipate her immediate lustful response to him. She didn’t expect her whole body to roar awake with wanting him to do just as he described. She would have thought herself sated. But she was insatiable.
And she had Davy to thank for that, in part.
Hours ago, she told herself that she loved Malcolm. And she still believed it. But there was no denying that Davy had a hold on her too, and not just on her lusts. That he would have taken the trouble to give her a turnip-flower!
He was boyishly charming, and sexually adventurous, and she wasn’t certain it was in her to deny him. Or herself. Virtuous girls denied themselves…but Arabella would not. “Won’t we get caught?”
“Not by anyone who matters,” Davy said, flashing her that familiar grin. He had been nervous she would say no. It had meant a great deal to him to be able to have her again. And in spite of all expectations, it was important to her too.
As if it evened scales that she hadn’t realized were unbalanced.
When he grasped her about the waist, and she felt a thrill go through her at the thought of being taken here, so near to the hall that they could even hear the music playing, she felt herself go slick with desire. But that wasn’t all she was slick with. “But Davy, I must tell you…I was with Malcolm.”